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ANGLO-SAXON, NORSE AND CELTIC ADMISSIONS ASSESSMENT

SPECIMEN PAPER 60 minutes

SECTION 2

Candidate number A Centre number

d d m m y y y y

Date of Birth – –

First name(s)

Surname / Family Name

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES Please read these instructions carefully, but do not open the question paper until you are told that you may do so. This paper is Section 2 of 2. This question paper requires you to read a single passage and answer a related question. You should write your answer in the space provided in this question paper. Please complete this section in black pen. You can use the blank inside front cover for rough working or notes, but no extra paper is allowed. Only answers in the space indicated in the paper will be marked. Dictionaries and calculators may NOT be used. Please wait to be told you may begin before turning this page

This question paper consists of 12 printed pages and 1 blank page PV6

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This page is intentionally left blank for your rough working or notes.

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The poem below has been translated from Old English. It comes from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a

year-by-year account that is generally in prose. There is no expectation that you will have seen the

poem before, or that you will know about its context.

Read the poem and write an essay in the space provided in response to one of the following:

1. How could an historian approach this poem as a source for the history of Anglo-Saxon England?

2. With reference to this poem, discuss the uses that a literary scholar could make of a poem on a historical topic.

Your answer will be assessed taking into account your ability to construct a reasoned argument, using

relevant evidence as appropriate from the text, footnotes and introductory information.

Candidates attempting Question 1 might include, among other things, consideration of the author's

perspective, and how that may have affected his presentation of events. Candidates attempting

Question 2 might include, among other things, discussion of the form and structure of the text, and its

themes.

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Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 937

This was the year when Athelstan,1 king

Of Wessex,2 prince among earls and patron

Of heroes, and his noble brother, Edmund,3

Hacked a lifelong glory from a battle

Near Brunanburh.4 They shattered the phalanx 5

Their swords splintered the linden shields,

And the sons of Edward followed their father,5

Proved the blood they had tested in battle

Before, defending their land and their homes

Against every invader. The enemy ran, 10

All the Scots and the shipborne Vikings,

Ran or drowned in blood, dropped

To a landlocked fate as the glorious sun

Went gliding over the earth like a candle

In God’s broad palm, blowing sublimely 15

Across the sky and dipping calmly

To darkness and night. The dead lay piled

Where the spears had left them, Vikings and Scots,

Tired, now, of the struggle, and wanting

Only to rest. All the battle 20

Became the Wessex cavalry endlessly

Hunting a broken enemy, their honed

And sparkling blades striking home

In fugitives’ backs. No Mercian6 refused

1 King Athelstan ruled from 924 until his death in 939.

2 Wessex was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom in the south of England. Its capital was Winchester (Hampshire).

3 Athelstan’s half-brother, Edmund, became king in 939 and ruled until his death in 946.

4 The location has not been conclusively identified. One popular suggestion is Bromborough on the Wirral peninsula

(Merseyside). 5 King Edward the Elder ruled from 899 until his death in 924.

6 Mercia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom in the English Midlands. By this time it was under the control of the Wessex kings.

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To aim his sword at any man 25

Who’d shared a sail with Anlaf,7 shipped

Himself across a stormy sea

To a bloody port. Five young princes

Pitched their beds on the battleground

And would never awake, and seven of Anlaf’s 30

Earls, and a host of invaders, Viking

And Scottish. Anlaf himself fought

His way to the prow of a ship, he

And a tiny band, forced to flee;

They pressed to sea on a dull brown tide 35

That floated the king to safety. Nor

Did the old one, Constantine,8 trailing

Defeat behind him all the way North,

Find exultation following his steps

Or boasts on his lips; he left his kinsmen 40

And friends scattered over the field,

Butchered to silence, and abandoned his son

On the heaps of the slain, an untried soldier

Cut into failure. No, the crafty

Grey-beard had no need to be vain, and no more 45

Had Anlaf: watching their wreck of an army

Nothing welled up into laughter

Or pride that, after amusing themselves

With Edward’s sons, they’d proved that they

And theirs were England’s best for the job 50

Of battle, the crashing of standards, the thrust

Of spears, the cut and slash of dagger

And sword. They fled in their mail-clad ships,

The blood-stained Northmen, over a deep and noisy

Sea to Dublin, back again 55

To Ireland, ashamed, disgraced. But those ashes

Of defeat were the sweetest taste of victory

In the brothers’ mouths, Wessex king

And Wessex prince, returning home

Together. They left a gift of dismembered 60

Corpses to the horny beak of the black-plumaged

Raven, and the grey-feathered eagle, splashed white

On his tail, to the greedy war-hawk and the grey-flanked

Forest wolf, a feast of carcasses

For lovers of carrion meat. No carnage 65

Had ever been bloodier, in any battle

Fought anywhere on this island, say the books

Of the old philosophers, not since the Angles

And Saxons9 arrived in England out of

7 Anlaf is a rendering of the name Óláfr. Óláfr Guðrøðsson was a king of Scandinavian origin. He ruled Dublin (934–41) and

York (939–41). 8 Constantín mac Áeda was king of Scots from around 900 until his retirement in 943. He died in 952.

9 The Angles and Saxons were component groups of the Anglo-Saxons.

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The East, brave men trying a broad 70

And dangerous sea, daring warriors

Who swept away the Britons,10

seized

The land and made it theirs alone.

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The Britons were Brittonic-speakers (speakers of a language akin to modern Welsh). By this time they were based in Wales, Cornwall, Brittany and the northern kingdom of Cumbria.

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Write your answer in the space below

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